Patients
by Scarabbug
Summary: Joey takes a trip in an ambulance and the medic isn’t quite sure what to think. Set during YuGiOh: Duellist, Volume Ten. Hint of YxJ if you squint.


**Disclaimers: If Japan has a different system for categorising medical conditions, I don't know what any of them are and it's frankly and all but impossible issue to search for so instead, you get my half-logical Holby City medical speak which I really hope works better than it feels like. Also Yugi and Co are definately not my property.

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Patients. 

It's not the kind of sight you can ever really get used to.

It's his third —no, fourth fire his week. The other three were household affairs. Chip pans, cigarettes left un-extinguished, panicking parents, third degree burns and screams all the way to the hospital. This one is something a little… bigger.

He hates it when it's kids. Even kids from street fights and bad homes –the same kinds of punks who used to shove him into garbage cans and flash knives in his face before he moved to Domino. It's still safer here than it ever was in California, but fires are as regular as they are in any other country in the world, starting small and spreading fast in the cramped streets of the suburbs.

'_Severe Oxygen deprivation, level three and two burns over twenty five percent of body.' _

'_Pulse erratic. Pupils dilated and unresponsive.' _

'_Respiration?' _

'…_We're not getting much there, either.' _

'_Are you surprised?'_

'_Not really. God damn this place is a mess. They're sure that's all?'_

'_Just these two in there. They were the only two that weren't on the ground floor. Don't know _why_ –they _look_ like customers.' _

'_Can we get an extra mask over here? I… there's more than one guy back here.' _

He's never been called out to a Game Store, before.

There's probably something noteworthy about that. Something to add to that list of "_strange call outs_" they have pinned to the wall in the coffee lounge. Only this isn't that funny and now he's starting to question the whole damn list. The words "sabotage" and "envious rivals" leap into his mind, because he knows how strange the people are in Domino City and he knows just how insane and obsessive things can become. And given the state of the building already, less than half an hour after the blaze first started, and the fact that this place was apparently premiering with a whole new line up of RPG games only this morning, the idea that this whole thing is some Triad-type attack from a rival company isn't really that far fetched.

It's also probably the most disturbing fire he's ever witnessed in all his time working for Domino Medical. A huge, sickly clown's face going up in flames as a painted, plastic, liquid grin melts around the doorframe. It looks like something torn out of a horror movie and he can't help thinking about how many more kids were in there this morning. How many _more_ this could have been.

The other boy is sitting on the floor, because it's the only place he can actually sit. This is an emergency. The other boy is… not so much. He's only in this van because he wouldn't go in the other one. Dragged himself out of the arms of three people trying to stop him, too. He looks like _hell_, true enough, but once then again, the Medic is used to that. The kid's familiar, really, now that he looks a little closer beneath the grime and ash. Maybe he's another one of the punks that they once picked up after a street fight. Or maybe—

Maybe he shouldn't try finding out before they have to start asking the always awkward questions about existing medical conditions and whether or not they've used any illegal substances in the last twenty-four hours, because it's never a good idea to go getting involved with the patients. All the medic knows about this boy he found out less than five minutes ago when he first saw him running out of a burning building with a body in his arms.

That body which is currently wrapped up in wires and tubes behind them and _still_ clutching the chain of that strange, old necklace tightly in one fist. The metal's cooling down now and they can see the burns begin to blister where the metal meets the flesh. The golden emblazoned eye on the thing's surface keeps on _looking_ at them. Staring and staring, like one of those old pictures that seems to follow you round the room.

For the fifteenth time since the sirens started blaring, the medic tries his best to remove it. The boy's grip is unyielding though, even while unconscious. He mentally adds possible-shock to the lift of things that're wrong with the kid. He knows it from a hundred times before. It's a strange, NDE-type compulsion. People who have stared death in the face grab hold of the nearest solid object and hang on for dear life, letting the shock creep in over their bones until you just can't prise them away. That's what's happening now.

'Don't bother…' The other boy is looking at him again. His eyes blink a little but that's the only sign of movement he gets. 'Tried, man. It's not going anywhere and neither's he. Not now, now ever.'

That… doesn't make much sense to the medic, though it's quite possible that it's just oxygen deprivation talking. The kid keeps pulling the mask off and every attempt to get him to leave it on is met with struggle. He's burned halfway up both his arms, too, but the painkillers are doing their job well.

_Definitely_ oxygen deprivation talking. The medic looks at the boy with the same firm determination they taught him in medical school and counts patiently –almost instinctively– to ten. He smiles gently.

'Well, it's red hot and could be removing what remains of the skin from his hands, you'd better believe I'm going to make him let go.'

The boy laugh-coughs around the mask but doesn't attempt to remove it again. At least not for about thirty seconds. The medic can see him semi-smiling through the transparent plastic and he could swear he hears him muttering. Something like 'I'd like to see you try.'

He reaches for antiseptic. Two in one van. The ambulances were _not_ designed for this and the other kid is in the way of half the equipment. The medic can't complain, though. He's the one who let the kid in this one in the first place. He pulled the kid out of a burning building, for God's sakes.

'…I'm afraid it's policy that we ask: do you have any existing medical conditions?'

'No. No, don't think so. He's…' he blinked against the ash in his eyes. 'He's a weird blood group, though. A… something rare, I think. You need to check that.'

'AB Negative, it's most likely we won't need that. And have you taken drugs of any kind in the last twenty four hours?'

'Ngh. No.'

'It's alright, you can tell me. I won't tell you parents.'

'I said _no_.'

'Have you been drunk anything alcoholic?'

'No.'

'Has _he_ been consumed any alcohol? Taken anything at all? Like I said, your parents—'

'Can both go to hell in a hand basket, man. Does it fucking well look like I'm on drugs? Shut _up _already.'

The reaction isn't surprising. 'I'm sorry, son, but I have to ask you these questions. There's a risk alcohol or drugs could interfere with the painkillers and medical—'

'For fuck's sakes I don't _care_. Help _him_ not _me_.'

…Says the boy who pulled the one he's pointing at out of a burning building.

The medic reaches out to squeeze the older (he _looks_ older anyway) boy's shoulder. It's as much for his own sake as anyone else's. Moments like these are the ones that make him wish he was driving instead of in the back. The ambulance rocks in a way that tells him they're crossing the central interchange on the final road to Domino Hospital. He's taken the route so many times he can tell every inch of it with his eyes closed, from the movement of the truck and the screeching of the breaks from Kido's far-too-reckless-for-an-ambulance driving.

'He'll be okay.'

The boy isn't looking at him. He hasn't looked at him once, actually, since they got into the ambulance. He's stayed looking at the body lying on the crash cart with an intensity that makes the medic think the two really _have_ to be related.

'Yuugi…'

_Yuugi_.

God. The irony of that is almost sick. Who the hell names their kid something like that, anyway?

Well, obviously, someone who owns a Game Shop. Only this kid isn't related to them, he's…

He's related to the guy across the street. The _rival_ company –or at least that's what he heard from the voices in the crowd and the tangled descriptions of _ID_, _home_ and _relatives_ that at least four other kids were trying to give him as he bundled these two into the ambulance.

It's an obvious connection. When you think about it.

They got him good. The kid isn't dead, but he might as well be. Most of his arms look like a bad case of sunburn but it's the hands that have taken the most punishment. The hands that're still wrapped around a shining lump of metal on the end of a chain that somehow, against all odds, doesn't seem to have attracted any ash or dirt and gleams as brightly as if the fire never touched it.

'I'm being very serious, kiddo. He needs to let go of the necklace.'

'So'm I. He won't.'

The medic is eternally patient. He has to be. It's in his job description. It stops him overreacting when there are frightened, in shock, third-degree burned children with him in the ambulance. 'I know. But his body's going into shock, it's only to be expected but it means that—'

'I don't know about all that,' he frowns at the medic. The vehicle jolts over speed bumps and makes him wince. 'Don't… don't think you need to explain it all. This medical stuff,' he mutters. 'It doesn't matter, because this _isn't_ medical stuff, okay? He won't let go, because it's the _puzzle_. You wouldn't get that. You… you couldn't. Don't try.'

He sounds so firm, so totally, utterly _serious_ when he says that, that the medic forgets the boy is just oxygen deprived and letting his words wander and takes his hands away from the necklace. Or the puzzle. Or whatever he called it. The kid is probably never going to be recognizable on a police register, by now, because he's not going to have any fingerprints anyway. The other boy still isn't looking away. The medic has learned that the best way to deal with things like this is to simply wait and stay close on hand with the painkillers. He's done this so many times isn't almost as instinctive as reaching up again to replace the mask around the boy's face.

'Try and keep that on. The oxygen will kick in soon. Trust me, then you won't be complaining.' He worked on the streets of California before he came to Japan. He knows how important street-cred is and how it can always help to make the kid whose life you're saving think you're cool so they don't argue with you too much. He keeps his tone as nonchalant and careless as he can without actually sounding _uncaring_. The boy doesn't respond all that much, but he doesn't pull the mask away again, either. Maybe this time he'll be able to keep it on for more than five minutes.

For a while there's silence except for the sirens. The medic sits, takes readings, checks the unconscious boy's pupils –still dilated and unresponsive– and listens to the constant hiss of oxygen and their driver cursing at traffic.

There are three minutes left of a too-long journey. They're always the longest, especially with emergencies. They give him time to think about where the hell they just came from and where they're going next. He hopes to god that it's not another fire. He hopes to god that clowns won't be involved. Or children.

He stands up, moves to check the trolley. The boy still looks like death, but there's colour coming back to his face now, underneath the ashes. In just a few hours he's probably going to be conscious, if they don't decide to keep him out of it, and the pain killers are going to be very much appreciated. So the medic stands back and supports himself on the upper shelves for the last few metres of the journey.

'_You okay back there? Approaching the emergency entrance, preparations being made for emergency patient. We're hoping to have oxygen on hand if they can get themselves bloody well organized.'_

'I…it's okay, yeah?' He doesn't think the question is directed at him so for a good few moments he doesn't answer it. And then there's a sudden tug on his sleeve. 'Hey. Oxygen guy.'

The medic looks down again and the other boy is clutching his arm. Tight. Almost like he's in shock as well even though the medic knows he probably isn't. Not quite, anyway. Not yet. 'We did it… didn't we? Both of us. Me and him. We… we got out.'

'Yes, you got out,' he says gently, shifting back to responsible adult-mode. 'It's all over now, kid.'

A smile perks on the boy's face, only this time it feels more… angry than before (though he's not totally certain how a smile could ever be _angry_) and it doesn't last for long before the boy's face creases again and starts looking strange and pathetic and still as dirty as hell. 'It's _not_, though. What if we don't… next time? I mean. I'll _try_ for him. I'll try but… but I don't _know_…'

The medic sits as still as the shaking vehicle will let him and once again, he's patient, waiting for tears that never come. Instead, he reaches out and grips the hand of the boy on the crash cart, tracing the metal of the necklace/puzzle gripped between the blistering fingers.

'I don't know,' the boy murmurs quietly, closing his eyes as the vehicle entered the hospital's emergency services gateway and the sirens drone slowly into silence. When he dreams tonight, the medic knows he's going to have nightmares filled with the faces of burning clowns and bitter rivals and frightened teenagers, and a boy who looks younger than he really is, clutching a metal chain tight in burned-black hands and smiling.

He still knows better than to ask any questions.

It's not in his job description to put his own life at risk anymore than he needs to, after all.

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**Reviews and concrit are much appreciated.**


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